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Chapter 25: Walkers
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2021-07-30 06:52:31Bjorn’s party tracked upriver, above the treetops, while seeking the source of the river. The quakes and fire no longer advanced, and even the rain drifted away and toward the southwest slopes. No more worms appeared, sick or healthy. As the rise in terrain reached higher and further northward, they passed above groups of Walkers and newly established shelters on the hillsides and in other areas that remained above the core of damage and flooded zones. In the highest ranges of flatland, the Walkers lived on productive farms.
“Someone warned them,” Crystellia said. “These shelters and farms are old and established. The beings down there aren’t refugees; they’re immigrant evacuees."
Bjorn barely absorbed her words. He was putting things together in his mind, remembering events at old Perd Van’s worm farm and in the marsh near the Kabutar ship docks, including the yellow ooze beneath Mother Tree during the sun-dipping with aunt Su
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Cupun’s friendship with Jamison felt second nature, so much so that Cupun wondered why his father still sometimes spoke of hanumans as abominations. Maybe old expressions die slowly, he thought, or perhaps such words merely linger in the mind long after the history behind the link is no longer relevant. Whatever the cause, Nukilik never used the word in the presence of Jamison. His sister’s husband was family and friend.While Adlartok trained Kallik in the methods of various weapons, Cupun and Jamison traveled beneath a prickly canopy of musty-smelling grayish-green rope-foliage growing on trees taller and thicker than any Cupun had encountered. Three grown men with arms extended and hands touching could not wrap the circumference of the sharp-barked hardwood trunks.During the journey from Jamison’s homeland, many new races had joined their group, all working to help one another. But Cupun and Jamison made too great a team to split apart. So from hu
Last Updated : 2021-07-30Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 27: A Battle In The Sky
Bjorn yelped as a three-prong grappling hook slammed across the deck, snagged on a bulwark, snapped tight, and pinned one crew member to a guardrail. A second barb scrapped Kurg’s pelvic fin before bouncing off the deck and whizzing past the Rand Solar balloon system. A musky blood scent splattered through the air. “They want us alive,” Nalura shouted while rushing to the pinned sailor and slicing the anchor rope with a single swipe of her caudal fin. “Fight to kill.” More hooks came down, and an immense shadow crossed over the stern and kept growing. An imperial battleship was upon them. Two imperial guards armed with tasers landed on the shrouds of the main topmast and slid down on the mainstay. More clambered over the battleship’s railing. “Mom,” screamed Crystellia while ducking beneath one rope that had wrapped around the mizzenmast. The sails tightened, billowed, then compressed again, and the schooner lurched hard to port with Nalura body-hugging the n
Last Updated : 2021-07-31Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 28 The Landing Party
Hours after the battle in the sky, Bjorn and the party arrived at a mountain waterfall, boarding a Walker’s village near a vast stretch of flatland. Greenery blended into the environment and covered the cascade’s rocky structure as though nurtured and shaped by an experienced Arborist. The scent of fresh blooms whiffed up and into the airship.“Here,” Bjorn said. “We drop anchor here.” A nearby field stretched wide with rolls of wood containers similar to those used when shipping worms to Cloud. Although occupied by living annelids, no yellowish slime lingered on or near the crates. For Bjorn, more of the pieces came together.They readied the climbing gear, and Bjorn and Nalura harnessed up.“I’m going too,” Crystellia said.“Can’t do,” Nalura said. “Edoul is too old, and Bjorn is necessary. We only have two yokes. Although professionally train, you, my impulsive daughter, lack
Last Updated : 2021-07-31Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 29 Two Worlds Healing
The Walkers showed no fear of the massive beast, so Bjorn and Nalura stood their ground, staying still, quiet and hopeful. Perhaps someone had restraints on this ancient junkyard guard-grizzly. In the distance, the waterfall roared. From far, far away, the surface world rumbled. Time ran thin.An older female Walker came near. She carried a staff and a mouthful of hand-sharpened teeth. Seductively beautiful in a grimy sort of way, she reminded Bjorn of some of the subterranean fish species common on Cloud.“Why are you here?” she said.Nalura nodded to Bjorn, urging him to respond.“We came seeking my mother,” he said. “She is an Airborne, as are we.”The old Walker grinned, her ears twitching as though in joy. “Then come, young Bjorn. Sira has waited long to see you.”—As soon as Bjorn and Nalura followed the Walker into the hedges near the waterfall, Crystellia stripped a harnes
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Adlartok stood on a hill overlooking the graveyard where Meriwa said goodbye to mom and dad. Both had passed away several years back. The sun glared from a blue sky as Airborne ships came and went, many of them now used by Walkers and their associates. Cupun and his mate reaped the benefits of a home-raising bee in the fields near the worm farms. But once they completed the house, he and Roxanne would join Adlartok and Jamison on another rescue mission. Ever since the merging of the races, reports of stranded humans came in often. Someone had to help. Tulugaak had journeyed back down south. Although he favored the cold weather, he said the ice wasn’t yet the same as it had once been on several return visits. But he wasn’t alone. A few of the original clan had survived. — Meriwa didn’t believe her parents lived in the ground. Neither had they ascended with the angels into the heavens, for angels, like other mutants, were merely genetically altered huma
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Nukilik awoke to the rumble of a surface quake. Smoke and fire seeped through a splintered gap in the main living room floorboards, but most of the clashing came from the girl’s bedroom at the rear of the cabin. Pine logs along the east wall groaned as the wood twisted and then splintered free of the bindings. The rearmost section of the ceiling and roof heaved upward and then drooped but held. Icy winds rushed through fresh gaps in the sod insulation. Everything was breaking apart.“Essentials, nothing but essentials,” he shouted as his two daughters burst into the living room, already dressed and carrying outdoor clothing in hand. One tall and one short, they moved through the darkness like stick figures outlined by the red haze of an open fire pit.Nukilik pulled on his winter boots before standing. For a big man, he was quick, but his wife, Amka, was faster. She was already rushing through the open doorway to ensure the girl’s safety. The st
Last Updated : 2021-06-29Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 2: Kabutar, a Floating Nest
Bjorn awoke before the first glint of sunlight angled up from beneath Kabutar, the easternmost of the seven floating nests. Disorientation sent a wave of excessive sensory surges rippling along the pedicel of his antennae. Although now receding, the remnants of a tangled, irritating dream stirred in the back of his mind.Surface dwellers gathered before a waterfall cluttered with flowing symbols, calculations, and worms. Grass slimed over with yellowed muck splotching a circle of sunbaked dirt. Behind the cascading veil of oddities, a woman—his mother as best Bjorn could remember her—The reoccurring night-phantoms gave way to his anticipation of the coming events. Today was special. Night moisture lingered near and comforting, and Cloud’s gray honeycombs promised fair weather to Kabutar.Bjorn remained perched on the stiff, shiny curls of transport vines that served as a natural roost throughout the city. Gray and greenish shadows shi
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Bjorn’s father, Captain Radoon Gydlin, head trades delegate to Below, was among one of the few citizens the imperial council authorized for negotiations with surface folk. Today the Captain would travel to Below. Today he would also introduce Bjorn to the process of trading. Bjorn had never been on one of his father’s trade journeys, not even when the Captain had but sailed to a neighboring nest. Just two seasons back, Captain Gydlin visited Ulou to meet Bjorn’s aunt and enjoy a festival. He had refused Bjorn an opportunity to partake in that journey. “Increased burden on the security team,” his father had said. “The intensity of current political disagreements stirs a strange and brooding rage between parties.” Bjorn flew on, pondering the angles of governmental disputes, the mystery of dreams, and wondering what might be yet to see in Below. Otherwise, he would have noticed the attack that came in from his rear. A shadow darted out from the above ri
Last Updated : 2021-06-29
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Adlartok stood on a hill overlooking the graveyard where Meriwa said goodbye to mom and dad. Both had passed away several years back. The sun glared from a blue sky as Airborne ships came and went, many of them now used by Walkers and their associates. Cupun and his mate reaped the benefits of a home-raising bee in the fields near the worm farms. But once they completed the house, he and Roxanne would join Adlartok and Jamison on another rescue mission. Ever since the merging of the races, reports of stranded humans came in often. Someone had to help. Tulugaak had journeyed back down south. Although he favored the cold weather, he said the ice wasn’t yet the same as it had once been on several return visits. But he wasn’t alone. A few of the original clan had survived. — Meriwa didn’t believe her parents lived in the ground. Neither had they ascended with the angels into the heavens, for angels, like other mutants, were merely genetically altered huma
Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 29 Two Worlds Healing
The Walkers showed no fear of the massive beast, so Bjorn and Nalura stood their ground, staying still, quiet and hopeful. Perhaps someone had restraints on this ancient junkyard guard-grizzly. In the distance, the waterfall roared. From far, far away, the surface world rumbled. Time ran thin.An older female Walker came near. She carried a staff and a mouthful of hand-sharpened teeth. Seductively beautiful in a grimy sort of way, she reminded Bjorn of some of the subterranean fish species common on Cloud.“Why are you here?” she said.Nalura nodded to Bjorn, urging him to respond.“We came seeking my mother,” he said. “She is an Airborne, as are we.”The old Walker grinned, her ears twitching as though in joy. “Then come, young Bjorn. Sira has waited long to see you.”—As soon as Bjorn and Nalura followed the Walker into the hedges near the waterfall, Crystellia stripped a harnes
Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 28 The Landing Party
Hours after the battle in the sky, Bjorn and the party arrived at a mountain waterfall, boarding a Walker’s village near a vast stretch of flatland. Greenery blended into the environment and covered the cascade’s rocky structure as though nurtured and shaped by an experienced Arborist. The scent of fresh blooms whiffed up and into the airship.“Here,” Bjorn said. “We drop anchor here.” A nearby field stretched wide with rolls of wood containers similar to those used when shipping worms to Cloud. Although occupied by living annelids, no yellowish slime lingered on or near the crates. For Bjorn, more of the pieces came together.They readied the climbing gear, and Bjorn and Nalura harnessed up.“I’m going too,” Crystellia said.“Can’t do,” Nalura said. “Edoul is too old, and Bjorn is necessary. We only have two yokes. Although professionally train, you, my impulsive daughter, lack
Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 27: A Battle In The Sky
Bjorn yelped as a three-prong grappling hook slammed across the deck, snagged on a bulwark, snapped tight, and pinned one crew member to a guardrail. A second barb scrapped Kurg’s pelvic fin before bouncing off the deck and whizzing past the Rand Solar balloon system. A musky blood scent splattered through the air. “They want us alive,” Nalura shouted while rushing to the pinned sailor and slicing the anchor rope with a single swipe of her caudal fin. “Fight to kill.” More hooks came down, and an immense shadow crossed over the stern and kept growing. An imperial battleship was upon them. Two imperial guards armed with tasers landed on the shrouds of the main topmast and slid down on the mainstay. More clambered over the battleship’s railing. “Mom,” screamed Crystellia while ducking beneath one rope that had wrapped around the mizzenmast. The sails tightened, billowed, then compressed again, and the schooner lurched hard to port with Nalura body-hugging the n
Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 26: Nests Come Down
Cupun’s friendship with Jamison felt second nature, so much so that Cupun wondered why his father still sometimes spoke of hanumans as abominations. Maybe old expressions die slowly, he thought, or perhaps such words merely linger in the mind long after the history behind the link is no longer relevant. Whatever the cause, Nukilik never used the word in the presence of Jamison. His sister’s husband was family and friend.While Adlartok trained Kallik in the methods of various weapons, Cupun and Jamison traveled beneath a prickly canopy of musty-smelling grayish-green rope-foliage growing on trees taller and thicker than any Cupun had encountered. Three grown men with arms extended and hands touching could not wrap the circumference of the sharp-barked hardwood trunks.During the journey from Jamison’s homeland, many new races had joined their group, all working to help one another. But Cupun and Jamison made too great a team to split apart. So from hu
Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 25: Walkers
Bjorn’s party tracked upriver, above the treetops, while seeking the source of the river. The quakes and fire no longer advanced, and even the rain drifted away and toward the southwest slopes. No more worms appeared, sick or healthy. As the rise in terrain reached higher and further northward, they passed above groups of Walkers and newly established shelters on the hillsides and in other areas that remained above the core of damage and flooded zones. In the highest ranges of flatland, the Walkers lived on productive farms.“Someone warned them,” Crystellia said. “These shelters and farms are old and established. The beings down there aren’t refugees; they’re immigrant evacuees."Bjorn barely absorbed her words. He was putting things together in his mind, remembering events at old Perd Van’s worm farm and in the marsh near the Kabutar ship docks, including the yellow ooze beneath Mother Tree during the sun-dipping with aunt Su
Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 24: Mother Below
Even from high above the surface, Below was not the same land Bjorn remembered. In many areas, surface quakes gutted the ground as trees burned even while still standing. In one direction, torrents of wind-driven rain blinded the eyes, and from a different view, ice and snow ravaged the hillsides. Lakes and rivers overflowed their banks. Valleys flooded. And throughout the air, a wave of flaming, foul-smelling muck twisted in, around, and under, advancing a destructive ecological change. All across the open areas, worms surfaced by the tens and tens of thousands, all squirming amid yellow-tinted ooze and many spewing the seepage twenty to thirty feet from the core of each grouping. A complete disaster had overtaken the land of Walkers. Surface burned, and nasty rainfall consumed all else. Bjorn feared rescue had arrived too late. “So, it’s not a myth,” said Nalura, her brown eyes glassy with tears. “For many seasons, we knew the vines were leaking oil. We just never
Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 23: Escape
Less than an hour after the spy was out of the way, a small but fast double topsail schooner, piloted by none other than Nalura, the OOD officer from Amera, docked on the underside of Mother Tree at the same place Bjorn and Aunt Sumia had sun-dipped for their first private meeting. Kurg, Crystellia, and Bjorn boarded. Everyone wore HB protection, but Bjorn was still glad the connection took place beneath Mother Tree. All above, rain fell in endless torrents. Sinkholes, rivers, and currents of mud ripped through Mother Tree’s root system. Only the mentally blind Cloud officials could honestly deny the reality of Clouds cry.A collection of climbing gear topped a heap near the starboard rails of the schooner and twin retractable cable rigs extended over the hull. A sense of urgency moved through the crew and the pilot. Yet things came to a bit of a halt when Bjorn saw Crystellia engage in an unexpected, for him, reunion.“Mother,” she shouted e
Airbornes: Bjorn and the Floating Nest Chapter 22: A Spy in The Midst
As soon as Bjorn accepted the concept of Suppressed Infectious Memory, his education expanded in leaps and bounds. The more information he took in, the more his dreams opened up. By the close of the third education cycle, he had written notations, formulas, and calculations directly out of memory. His mind was a living document of his mother’s memoirs.Then active, officious interference began, and Kurg discovered a spy lurked among them. He told Bjorn as they hovered in a secluded branch near the of the same cluster of cattails where Bjorn and Crystellia had meet on that day she shared her mystery and her mission. The wind whisked moisture through the airways, and odor of spores was stronger than ever. The end looked nearer than ever.“Who is it?” Bjorn said, his face twisting into a near human sneer. “I’ll slice him into shreds quicker than sunlight sucks moisture.”“No, no,” Kurg said, his flaps arching. “
